Shore Leave
by The Night was Moist
Summary: He remembers a moment long ago...


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Star Trek.

**Shore Leave**

_118 years ago, by his reckoning…_

Almost the entire crew had transported down. Shore leave was the last thing on my mind, as always, but on this occasion, I had a reason to accompany them. For though this planet had never been found on any known star chart, it was incredibly familiar to me, and I wished to see it for myself. Thus, while my shipmates wasted their day away on logically unfathomable activities, such as kicking around spherical objects on grass-covered fields, I was determined to spend my free time on serious-minded research and surveying.

As I knelt to scan a fossil-filled outcropping, I heard a sound that caused my heart to constrict. It was a sound I had come to know very well over the past four years. The sound was her voice, and it was raised in song.

I had hoped she would follow me, but had not dared expect it. For she was the ship's social jewel, while I was its solitarian. Averting most of my gaze, I tried not to pay her any attention as she playfully sauntered towards the small promontory on which I was situated.

But when she entered my presence, my feigned indifference turned into barely disguised exasperation as I told her she should have remained with her friends. Instantly disarming me with her smile, she insisted that she wanted to keep me company. However, she also insisted that she was on 'vacation' and did not wish to help me with my 'boring' work.

Shaking my head, I pretended to be more intent on my tricorder readings than on her closeness, as I began to describe, in endless fascination, the myriad ways in which this world mirrored my own. The atmosphere, the gravity, the topography - all of these features were very similar, as were so many others. I then explained that this world would be ideal as a future colony for my people, and that perhaps I should bring it to the attention of the Vulcan High Council.

She listened to my ponderings as attentively as she could, but it was not long before her impish nature got the better of her, and I began to feel a soft finger scribbling against my back. Becoming mindful that the others were not far away from us, I demanded to know what she was doing. She said that she was drawing animals that reminded her of home, and that this one was a giraffe.

She then asked me whether there might be giraffes on this planet.

"Negative," I replied.

"What about elephants?" she asked, as she drew an elephant.

"Negative," I replied again.

"Then what about zebras?" she asked, as she drew a zebra.

"Negative," I replied yet again, and kept replying, with each animal she asked about. It was all complete nonsense, of course, but her sliding touch felt agreeable enough to allow it to continue.

But soon, she attempted the unthinkable. She attempted to tickle me. Confronted by an activity that my Vulcan dignity could not abide, I rebuked her perhaps a little too harshly. And as she turned away in a huff, I went back to analyzing my readings.

It took me precisely 23 seconds to discover that I was missing the same attentions I had just so firmly repudiated. Putting down my instrument, I turned and just stared at her. She was standing at the edge of a precipice, looking down upon a vast low-lying plain, with mountains all surrounding. Her arms were folded, her shoulders were slumped, and her soft black hair was dancing in the wind. At that moment, something almost unprecedented began to flow through me, overwhelming my carefully controlled mind.

Acting on impulse, I marched over and seized her in my arms. She squirmed and gave protest, but soon her lips were moving as eagerly as mine were. Only in the back of my mind did I remember that the others were still not that far away. If any of them were to see us, they would see their austere commander doing something that was beyond all sense of propriety. But shockingly, at that moment, I did not care. And as her arms pulled me closer, I could not help but marvel that a woman this warm, this special, could want to be with a man like me, a man who was virtually her opposite.

Afterwards, as I held her to me, and we stood watching a darkening sun as it descended upon a new and glorious world, she forced me to acknowledge that shore leave was not so illogical a concept after all.

**The End**


End file.
